Category Archives: California

Say what you want about Dr. James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, but even the proverbial stopped watch is right twice a day. Looks like Dr. Hansen finally has one correct idea, at least as far as the usefulness of cap and trade is concerned. We wonder if this is the result of shock therapy.

Speaking at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club he had the following to say:

The system, in which companies buy and sell permits to produce greenhouse gases, is a “half-baked” and “half-assed” way to deal with global warming, Hansen said.

His comments Tuesday were typically blunt. Cap and trade, he said, does little to cut emissions. But it does enrich the trading desks of banks, who have a new market to explore.

“Why do you want big banks in this problem?” Hansen asked. “Why should they be making money? Every cent they make is coming out of the public’s hide. And they add absolutely nothing. What you want is a system which is very simple and makes things cleaner.”

No, he didn’t do a 180 degree flip on global warming, but at least he gets the idea that the cap and trade system is a ripoff and basically doesn’t do much except ripoff the general public and make bankers fat, AKA: Bend forward in the name of Gaia. At least him making these statements is one step in the right direction.

It also appears he neglected to mention that no matter how it’s administered, cap and trade is a glorified tax that greedy states like California will grab under the pretense of saving us all from global warming and then misuse it on other “half-assed” schemes.

The best part of this is he said it all in front of California Governor Jerry Brown who’s no doubt salivating at getting California’s hooks into that money. Jerry just loves cap and trade. What greedy government official wouldn’t?

This should be titled “A big car for a big hypocrite.” Why? Because Arnold Schwarzenegger’s hypocrisy evidently knows no bounds.

When he was the Governator (evidently he must have thought this was an acting job), he stuck the citizens of California with what is known as Assembly Bill 32: the Global Warming Solutions Act. A nefarious plan to suck money out of the bank accounts of California citizens and businesses via a cap and trade program. You can click the link above and read for yourself.

The end result will be that if you buy anything in California the price will be going up as when the price of gas and diesel rises, so does everything else as it’s all delivered by truck. You can bet CARB will be costing the refineries and trucking companies a lot of money buying carbon credits and making them file a 50 page report, in triplicate, every time someone farts at work.

Let’s not forget this isn’t going to be good for the job market in California either. If price of goods and doing business goes up businesses will have less of those dollars to spend on hiring and expansion. This, in our humble opinion , could also drive even more business out-of-state and cause more bankruptcies.

Meanwhile, after screwing everyone in the state, what does the Hypocriteanator do? Oh, he buys a huge Mercedes Unimog! A gas hog par excellence, that should probably have its very own cap and trade program set up. A little research shows that on Unimog forums most claim to get about 15-16 miles per gallon. Certainly not in Prius territory. Not to mention they’re diesels, emitting soot, another no-no for the do-gooder greentard crowd. Let’s not forget Arnold likes to fly private jets all the time, too. Spewing out more of that carbon he’s so ‘worried’ about.

As such, we are awarding Arnold the one-fingered CO2 Insanity salute for Hypocrite of the Month.

……And another one bites the dust. British Petroleum is shuttering its solar manufacturing business. More proof that solar isn’t the big panacea it’s touted to be and is not going to be providing many shovel-ready jobs in the United States or anywhere else, with the possible exception of China.

The unit, which BP has been scaling back since 2008, is the latest sun energy business to fall victim to rampant competition from China, falling prices, overcapacity and lower government subsidies on which the industry still depends.

This doesn’t only affect Europe, this is going to have a worldwide effect…..

The company confirmed on Wednesday that it plans to exit its large-scale projects at Long Haven in the U.S. and Moree in Australia.

Add this to the long list of dead or dying companies such as Solyndra and Evergreen Solar in the US and…..

Swiss bank Sarasin said in a recent study that Conergy and Q-Cells were among the German solar companies most exposed to the sector’s crisis.

We continue to maintain that if solar power was such a great idea government subsidies would not be necessary for solar to be a big financial and energy success and it appears we’re becoming more right as each day passes. Someone should get the people running the US Department of Energy and California Governor Jerry Brown out of their green comas and advise them of this.

Please don’t bring up oil company subsidies. At least they have a viable product, make a profit and pay taxes.

What started as a $33 billion project, then recently mushroomed into a $98.6 billion project, that only one week later mushroomed into a $117.6 billion dollar project, now has another problem. This problem, no doubt, will again raise the already astronomical costs of the bullet train that Californians will not only get stuck paying for, but will probably be stuck subsidizing for almost eternity.

It now seems that the grand plan to tunnel under San Jose, California isn’t so grand after all. According to yet another study:

“We have looked at this very thoroughly and done very detailed engineering for this,” said Dan Leavitt, the authority’s deputy director, about the tunnel option. “It is not a constructable scenario for high-speed rail.”

In a nutshell this means the transportation hub in San Jose will need to be built above ground, which means that they’ll have to spend more money buying up property that they would not have had to purchase if the underground station was viable.

Meanwhile, in what appears to be a fit of delusion, instead of telling the state to shove it, the City of San Jose will continue to spend more tax dollars studying this, even though budget problems have reduced the number of police and fire personnel on duty.

The Legislature and Governor Jerry Brown also appear to be delusional about this costly and unneeded train to nowhere. It is seriously not funny that this fiasco continues to spend money needed elsewhere. California’s budget deficit is now expected to have a $13 billion budget deficit by mid-year that will cause $2 billion in automatic spending cuts, many in education.

Meanwhile, the Board of Regents of California State University, who raised tuition 15.5% last November just voted yesterday to again increase tuition by another 9%. This is a total increase in just one year of 25.5%. If you want to know what this costs students in dollars here it is:

The price of a year at CSU has risen steadily for years. Next fall, basic tuition will be $5,970. With a mandatory fee averaging $1,047 across the 23-campus system, the price will stand at $7,017. That’s more than triple what it cost in 2002-03.

It is a total shame that the State Legislature and Governor Jerry Brown don’t pull the plug on the bullet train boondoggle that continues to grow in size and cost and may accelerate putting the State of California into bankruptcy before it’s over and done with. Talk about fiddling while Rome burns, this has to be it.

The only thing green about this project is the obscene amounts of money that will be spent on a boondoggle that will only green the pockets of unions, who evidently have much of California’s government in their hip pockets.

Let’s not forget the United States debt just hit $15 trillion yesterday. How about paying bills before spending on boondoggles?

We urge you to read more of the gory details of this CO2 Insanity at the source below.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

While I’m not one of their attorneys, I’d suspicion the part highlighted above is what they’re referring to. This could mean that they have done something illegal and won’t be ratting on themselves before Congress, or perhaps they could be using this to cover for others involved with Solyndra, or both. In either event I find it very reminiscent of testimony by alleged Mafia members during Congressional hearings in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

I’d say you can rule out Attorney General Eric Holder doing anything about this because it certainly appears that, based upon e-mails made public, that Solargate at the very least will lead to some Obama Administration officials and potentially it could even lead to President Obama.

In addition to all the other problems surrounding Solyndra, we now get even more stupidification, also known as the taxpayers get screwed again. According to Associated Press:

The Obama administration restructured a half-billion dollar federal loan to a troubled solar energy company in such a way that private investors – including a fundraiser for President Barack Obama – moved ahead of taxpayers for repayment in case of a default, government records show.

Gee, talk about covering your buddies asses at the taxpayers expense, this is it. Why should the taxpayers take a back seat to Obama’s buddies? I also mention stupidification because of the next statement:

Administration officials defended the loan restructuring, saying that without an infusion of cash earlier this year, solar panel maker Solyndra Inc. would likely have faced immediate bankruptcy, putting more than 1,000 people out of work.

Now, please tell me who came up with this brilliant idea? The reality is that if Solyndra had been allowed to go bankrupt, like it should have to begin with, the taxpayers wouldn’t be stuck for $535 million dollars. Restructuring the loan to save a whopping 1,000 or so jobs for such a short time was braindead. It would have been much cheaper to use some common sense and let Solyndra fold.

Heads should roll, people should probably be jailed, but we all know that probably won’t happen and if any do roll, it will most likely be some lower echelon government employee who becomes the sacrificial lamb.

You can read more of the Gore-y details by clicking on the source below.

For decades now the environmentalists have ruled with a recycled iron fist. They have had laws passed, no matter how asinine, under the guise of protecting the environment. Development stopped by snakes, frogs, Spotted Owls, Yellow-Billed Penis Poppers and you name it. Trying to get environmental approval is just a synonym for litigation. Try and build it and some whackadoodle environmental group will most likely threaten a lawsuit and try and drag the approval of most anything for years, delaying construction, costing jobs (except for attorneys) and adding millions to the cost.

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) has joined in a lawsuit that calls into question the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s protection of a California fly that, by the government’s own admission, is doomed to extinction.

The lawsuit is in response to the government’s protection measures for the Delhi Sands Flower-Loving Fly, which have included forcing San Bernardino County to move a proposed hospital 250 feet and fence in eight acres of fly preserve thus adding more than $3.5 million to the price of the hospital; preventing the County from making improvements to an emergency road leading to the hospital; and attempting to either close a major commuter highway during fly mating season, or drop the speed limit for that highway to 15 mph.

Yes, we’re talking about a fly folks, not a Condor or an Eagle. The highway they wanted to slow or shut down? Interstate 10, a major highway that goes from Santa Monica, California to Jacksonville, Florida. Imagine the traffic jams, pollution and the immense waste of gas and diesel that would result from diverting traffic or slowing down the speed to 15 miles per hour along this stretch in California? I’d predict miles and miles of cars, trucks and buses going no where fast.

It seems now that the shoe is on the proverbial other foot. The government is out of money, the taxpayers are out of money, jobs and patience. Last week President Obama put the kibosh on an EPA ozone rule that had a projected cost of between $19 and $90 billion dollars, not to mention putting lots of people out of work.

Today it gets even better. So good I had to slap myself to make certain I wasn’t dreaming. So what happened?

California lawmakers on Friday approved a bill that would soften parts of a landmark, 4-decade-old environmental law and could pave the way for the quick approval of large developments across the state.

In the final hours of the year’s legislative session, Democrats pushed through a measure that would give the governor the power to speed up the environmental review process on some large construction projects, including sports stadiums and green manufacturing plants.

Yes folks, it’s getting so bad out there that Democrats like President Obama and the California Legislature are finally waking up to the fact that this environmental silliness needs to go. People need jobs, things need to be built and we don’t need to all live in caves and subsist on pine nuts and granola. Let’s not forget that the USA and the State of California desperately need revenue, something that empty fields to save flies that most people swat, don’t provide.

Goes with the same lack of logic that praises wind-turbines that kill birds like Golden Eagles. The same lack of logic that closes down coal power plants and bans construction of nuclear power plants while wanting to expand the sales of electric vehicles that need power to charge that inefficient wind and solar won’t provide alone. The same lack of logic that even causes them to try to prevent natural gas power plants from being built even though they’re very clean.

Perhaps we should call this lack of logic CO2 Insanity. It’s about time they got told where to stuff their lack of logic.